Probably my most nostalgic item is an ancient artbook ITEM #442724 published way back in 1994. Back in the mid 90's, I knew about the existence of this book and I really liked the artwork but I was a poor graduate student back then with no collecting budget. Further, sourcing items from Japan wasn't nearly as easy then as it is today; Amazon and Ebay had just come into existence, and Google didn't even exist yet!

Anyway, I'd almost forgotten about this until it got added to the MFC database a few months back, when I decided I should finally track down a copy.

The cute and sexy artworks have aged well!

Back in the day, I liked these artworks enough that I printed out several of them from scans I found online and had them on the wall by my desk. Even though I was a poor student then, I enjoyed my carefree grad student life and so this artbook sort of takes me back to those days! Of course, in those days we also had painfully slow dial-up internet, computers whose hard drives were smaller than the SD card currently in my camera, and anime was watched on a tube TV on VHS cassettes that gradually wore themselves out, but that's the way it was and we liked it :).

17. Most annoying item.

I could only narrow this down to two items.

First is a figure of one of my favorite secondary characters, Griffon's Maryan ITEM #9092. The swimsuit-under-the-uniform concept is quite neat and echoes one of my favorite anime tropes, but unfortunately the figure is just not of very good quality. Her head is too wide, I can't unsee how her eyes seem to point in different directions, and she has one of those godawful Griffon bases. It's too bad, because this *could* have been a really neat figure.

A figure that is annoying for a totally different reason is a figure that I really like, Kotobukiya's Ayane ITEM #419 in DOAX mode.

What is annoying about the figure stems from the fact that Ayane comes with several costume options including two different bikini tops. The other bikini top is less skimpy than this one, and the other top is placed directly over this one. However, this necessitates removing the strings of the bikini each of which are harder than hell to attach to her body and they are prone to popping out of place. At first, I would carefully put them back in place every time one came loose, but eventually I said to heck with it...

18. Gaudiest/tackiest item.

NSFW photo/item below. You could skip over this if you want...

View spoilerHide spoiler
This honor goes to one of the ecchier figures in my collection, Orchid Seed's Ziska ITEM #27956. I love this figure, but she is undeniably tacky. The huge wings, her pose, her bare breast, and the way she's enjoying...herself...makes this figure really stand out.

19. Biggest figure.

Another NSFW photo/item below.

View spoilerHide spoilerThe biggest figure in my collection was also a candidate for "tackiest figure", a ginormous 1/4 scale figure of a character from a hentai visual novel, FREEing's Amane Shiratori ITEM #78975. She is almost 14.5 inches (37 cm) tall and she will not fit in a Detolf without removing one of the shelves. Further, that IV stand can (and is meant to!) expand several addition inches in height. The IV stand as it's meant to be displayed would be over 17 inches (43 cm) tall!

I found this figure out in the wild at a US store at a good price and it's a neat figure, but it's really hard to display the figure because of its huge size!

20. Smallest figure.

At first, I thought this would be one of my Negima! Figumates (ITEM #6540, ITEM #5967, ITEM #5969, and ITEM #6550) which are sort of nostalgic figures since I got them by collecting the DVD singles of the TV series (remember those days :)). However, the winner is an even tinier figure, this ITEM #99405 tiny figure of Konata Izumi in Strike Witches cosplay mode.

That other Konata ITEM #238305 is not a huge figure, coming in at small 1/8 scale or a large 1/9, and you can see how tiny this figure is by comparison!

21. Favorite figure received as a gift.

I've never gotten an anime figure as a gift, but someone did give me this Konata keychain ITEM #63843 as a gift.

22. Favorite pair of figures to display together.

This was a tough one, but I ultimately decided on a pair of figures where I really couldn't imagine displaying one without the other, Yamato's Alma ITEM #4400 and Brenda ITEM #1717. I got Alma first from AmiAmi preowned, but without her lovely submissive Brenda at her feet, something was just missing somehow, so I had to promptly hunt that figure. These two actually share a shelf with ITEM #1202 and ITEM #236652 (and they will soon be joined by ITEM #42096), so these two may have opened a Pandora's box of sorts...

Honorable mention: This Rei/Asuka pair (ITEM #36173 and ITEM #36174) is another duo where I couldn't really imagine displaying one without the other. In fact, I didn't buy these two until I could get them both at the same time!

23. Cutest figure.

While that Rei/Asuka pair is a strong contender for this category, the outrageous cuteness of Plum's Tomoka Minato ITEM #339063 was not to be denied!

Tomoka is always pretty damn cute, but throw in her happy expression and that little heart-shaped bouquet and the moe power of this figure is formidable.

24. Edgiest figure.

Here's my one and only double-dip from part one of this article. When Matsuri Tougetsu ITEM #209601 is displayed (NSFW language ahead) View spoilerHide spoilercastoff and using her supersized sexy toy, I'd be hard pressed to identify an edgier figure in my collection.

25. Series you wish was complete (whether it’s unfinished by the company or you don’t have all of them).

Gunslinger Girl is one of my favorite anime series, Henrietta ITEM #39 was one of my first figures, and I was over the moon when, a few years later GSC quit dragging their heels and released Triela ITEM #13765. I was optimistic that in time castmates Claes, Rico, and Angelica would join them, but alas that was it for GSC Gunslinger Girl figures...

What I wouldn't give for Good Smile to someday finish the set. Maybe the next time Powerball goes over $500,000,000, I'll buy exactly one ticket; if I win I'll buy the company and the first act of my administration will be to get those figures in production...

26. Completed series.

I have a set of figures of the entire main cast of Strike Witches, but I don't consider it a complete set since it's a mixture of the Kotobukiya and Alter Witches.

That said, I do have a truly complete set of figures, the Plum bunny figures of the Ro-Kyu-Bu main cast.

It helps when the main cast consists of only five characters!

27. Oldest item (one that was made the earliest, not the one you’ve owned the longest).

That Mon-Mon artbook from earlier is technically the oldest item in my collection, but my oldest figure is a 2003 Asuka ITEM #4446 offering. There are surprisingly few Asuka beach figures out there, so I eventually went for this one.

The figure is showing its age, though, proving that figures don't last forever. The paint on her bikini is starting to crack, as is the finish of the base. This is a cold cast figure, so I'm not sure if that is a contributing factor...

28. Most recent acquisition.

As of this writing, my most recent figure buy is a figure that exceeded my expectations, Union Creative's Reika Shimohira ITEM #463088.

That all black bodysuit really makes her stand out!

29. Your display.

This was from about two years ago. In the last two years, that empty Detolf has since gotten populated...

30. Favorite item(s).

There's no way I could pick just one, but I was able to narrow it down to four.

As I mentioned a second ago, Gunslinger Girl is one of my favorite anime, Triela is my favorite character from the series, and her blonde hair, blue eyes, and twintails also check a bunch of my moe boxes!

At a massive 1/4 scale, this is truly a magnificent figure of another of my favorite characters. Given the steady rise in figure prices over the last couple of years, getting her for only 12000 yen new back in 2014 seems like a tremendous bargain, too!

This could be the ultimate figure of my favorite character. She's big (1/6 scale), the base is really neat, her expression is so very Asuka-like, and Kotobukiya did a great job with Asuka's lithe physique! Figures like this are why I collect figures.

THANKS FOR READING!

I've written reviews of a number of items in this loot, so please check them out if you like.